Last words often define a person’s whole life in one sentence.
Other times they provide a unique insight into the character, and
now and then they are just plain funny.
Confederate General Thomas J.
”
Stonewall
”
Jackson, wounded by his own men outside Chancellorsville,
deliriously shouted battle orders after surgeons removed his left
arm. Just before the end he found a measure of peace and said,
”
Let us cross over the river and rest in the shade of the
trees.
”
Last words often define a person’s whole life in one sentence. Other times they provide a unique insight into the character, and now and then they are just plain funny.
Confederate General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, wounded by his own men outside Chancellorsville, deliriously shouted battle orders after surgeons removed his left arm. Just before the end he found a measure of peace and said, “Let us cross over the river and rest in the shade of the trees.”
His friend and superior officer, Robert E. Lee, as a civilian after the war, also relived old battles before he whispered, “Strike the tent,” and died.
Union General John Sedgwick, in urging his men closer to the enemy at The Wilderness, said, “Come on men, they couldn’t hit an elephant at this dis…..”
An earlier general, Ethan Allen of the Revolutionary War’s Green Mountain Boys, was told at his deathbed that the angels were waiting for him. Always feisty, he growled, “Waiting, are they? Well, let them wait.”
The Irish are known for humor and playwright Brendan Behan maintained that tradition to the last. After a nursing nun gave him a glass of water, he quipped, “Bless you, sister. May all your sons be bishops.”
A priest at the bedside of Ramon Maria Navarez, long-time prime minister of Spain in the 19th Century, asked him if he forgave his enemies. “I don’t have to,” Navarez replied, “I had them all shot.”
Georg Hegel, a German philosopher whose works are as obscure today as they were to his contemporaries, confided to a friend sitting with him in the final minutes, “In all my life there was only one person who understood me. And he really didn’t understand me.”
There is something admirable about the French in their last minutes. They carry it off with style, and often, dash. Consider the final spoken thoughts of Dominique Bonhors, 17th Century grammarian: “I am about to – or I am going to – die. Either expression is used.”
Madame de Pompadour, the arbiter of style at the pre-Revolutionary French court, was on her deathbed, when she suddenly cried, “Wait!” She hurriedly applied rouge to her cheeks and sank back.
The Marquis de Favras, on his way to the guillotine during The Terror, was handed his death sentence. He scanned it rapidly, and thrust it back. “I see that you made three spelling mistakes,” he said and, having had the last word, mounted the steps.
Marie Antoinette, the unhappy queen whose excesses helped bring down the government, accidentally stepped on the executioner’s foot as she faced the guillotine. She half-curtsied and said, “Pardon me, sir.”
The English carry the final scene off well. Sr. Joseph Henry Green, 19th Century surgeon, said after a particularly wheezy breath, “Congested.” He took his own pulse and uttered, “Stopped.”
Edmund Gwenn, best known for his role of Kris Kringle in “Miracle on 34th Street,” was asked at the last if dying was hard. “Oh, no,” he replied. “Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.”
Lady Nancy Astor momentarily regained consciousness and saw her family gathered about the bed. “Am I dying,” she asked “or is it my birthday?”
I hope at my end I will not say something gauche like, “Huh?” or “You’ve got the wrong man!” I considered many statements and finally arrived at one that is at least brief and sincere, if not witty. I append it to this, my final column, in the event I take the Big Step in my sleep:
“Goodbye. It has been a pleasure to know you.”
